I've looked at thousands of photo books in my life and this is one of my personal favorites. Why? It isn't, for the most part, because of the subject matter. Eggleston's images are pretty banal -- common everyday objects that we routinely ignore. I like this book because it shows an undisputed master dealing simultaneously with two photographic problems -- color and a square image format. Even if you don't agree with Szarkowski's assertion that Eggleston was the first photographer to actually see in color (in contrast to the emphasis upon form and texture that characterizes black and white photography), there is no disputing the originality of his vision and the influence that it has had on subsequent generations of photographers. The images in this book, from early in his career, beautifully display that vision. But, unlike any of his other photographs, the ones in this book are square. Most photographs are reproduced in rectangular format, providing them with a natural visual tension. Faced with a square format, many photographers opt for symmetry as a compositional strategy. Not Eggleston -- he uses color to create disproportionate visual weights and add a visual dynamic to the images. For a nice contrast, compare the images in this book to those in Larry Fink's Social Graces (black and white photos in the 2 1/4 format) to appreciate the difference between using color (Eggleston) and non-symmetric form (Fink) to get rid of the structural monotony of the square image format. Finally, this book is an absolute delight to hold. The pages and cover, as with most other Twin Palms books, provide tactile pleasures a quantum leap beyond those in 98% of other books.